To no one's surprise, many of these screenshots come from online dating apps. They're the bane of many people's existence, but also the starting point of many successful marriages.
Still, it's hardly surprising that so many of these messages come from dating platforms. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 60% of female dating app users reported that someone continued contacting them even after they had made it clear they weren't interested. Meanwhile, 57% said they had received unsolicited explicit images or messages.
There's also a simple explanation for why these screenshots happen in the first place: the screens in front of us act as a protective barrier.
Psychologist John Suler developed the concept of the "online disinhibition effect," which explains how factors like invisibility and anonymity can remove the social guardrails that usually keep us in check in everyday life. As a result, people become more likely to say unhinged things behind a screen that they would never dream of saying in person.
Sharing screenshots, however, also has a psychological explanation: it comes down to venting and sharing emotions with others, especially friends.
Studies in computer-mediated communication suggest that sharing screenshots can actually work as an emotional coping mechanism. When someone shares a particularly unhinged message and asks, "Am I crazy, or is this insane?" their group chat, or even the internet, can act as a much-needed sanity check.
Back then, though, screenshots didn't exist. But public shaming was still very much a thing; the medium had simply changed. Instead of JPEG files, people faced humiliation in person.
In 17th- and 18th-century Europe and colonial America, people who broke community norms or challenged the status quo through things like gossiping, public drunkenness, or making inappropriate advances could be locked in pillories and stocks in the village square for everyone to mock. In fact, you can still find these pillories in many European cities today.
